Re:Verse passage – Judges 3:31 and Acts 2:42-47 (day seven)
“After him came Shamgar the son of Anath, who struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad; and he also saved Israel.”
One verse. One sentence. One story. We are only 3 chapters into Judges but we can already fill in the blanks for the details of this story… After 80 years of peace, the people forgot about Ehud and started worshipping other gods. They then fell into oppression to a foreign nation. Some of the old people said, “Remember when we worshipped YHWH and life was good? Lets do that again!” So they cried out to God for help. God listened and called Shamgar while herding cattle to go fight the Philistines. Shamgar took that literally and left with his cattle prod to fight the Philistines. Shamgar obeyed. God won. Israel was saved.
Why is this story so easy to fill in the blanks? Because it’s our story too. When reading this book, we would like to think we are the judges, but in all actuality, we are the people stuck in our own cycle of sin. Lucky for us, our Judge has already saved us. We need only to call out His name!
